Cymru a'r byd - Wales and the world

Indeed! My internet buffers sometimes too. But Radio Cymru is amazing. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Yep. Love it. Quite often put it on when I go to bed. Radio is usually fine. TV is the problem.
Forget the NBN, just give us respectable speeds to begin with ha

1 Like

You have to be reasonably fluent to listen. With S4C you can use subtitles until you donā€™t need to!
@aran bach!! That was 815/6000, which is NOT a good percentage!!!

I started listening to radio Cymru long before I could understand. Music too - some albums for a couple of years. Every now and then I think ooo! I undertstand that line now. I still donā€™t understand everything on the radio, word for word, but my comprehension is growing. I try not to use subtitles when watching TV either. :slight_smile: Iā€™m better at factual shows than drama.

1 Like

Thatā€™s about 13%. To give you some context, itā€™s common for companies to run their advertising on the basis of 1 sale for every 500 visitors.

We get an open rate of about 20% - so only about 1200 of your target 6000 have even had the chance to read the details in the email - and of those, not all of them will read it carefully from beginning to end.

So youā€™re running at about 65%+ of the people whoā€™ve actually seen it - thereā€™s no way youā€™re going to get much better results than that.

As I said, 13% is pretty good in this context.

1 Like

I donā€™t understand a hell of a lot of it, just enough to get the gist. Find it oddly relaxing either way.

2 Likes

Grovel! One might think that by 74+ I might have learned patience and to limit my expectations! Too late now, I guess!
p.s. I started a topic, ā€œEnglish Educationā€. If you think itā€™s too political and/or inappropriate, kill it!

1 Like

Rather late to the conversation - sorry. Iā€™m the Aled to whom Liz refers in her notes from last year.

Question:
How could SSi and Cymru aā€™r Byd collaborate to facilitate a broader conversation and, subsequently, action around engaging people globally around our common love for Wales and its language? Suggestions on a postcard ā€¦ or here, I guess. Iā€™ll put it to the Cymru aā€™r Byd people.

Cofion

Aled

2 Likes

No, the trick is to start listening BEFORE you can understand Radio Cymru. Put it on in the background when you are doing other tasks. Over time, you will find you understand more and more. When I first started doing this I thought I wasnā€™t understanding anything until I found myself telling my husband about a musician called Catrin Herbert whoā€™d won a recording session in the Abbey road studio. Iā€™m sure she said heaps of other interesting stuff that I didnā€™t understand but it made me realise I had understood something. Personally, I wouldnā€™t use subtitles with the TV either. Just accept that for half an hour you arenā€™t going to understand much and take it on the chin. :slight_smile:

Aran may not agree?

7 Likes

I definitely agree. I also think that not trying to understand every word is the important bit. Listening to the context and letting it flow is important. Itā€™s so hard unless you catch the beginning of a programme. If you join half way through itā€™s difficult (still valuable).
If we try and understand every word I find I think ā€œbachgen, I recognise that, thatā€™s boyā€ meanwhile the story has moved on by at least a sentence or two and the context has gone.

Listening to the radio is definitely not reserved for the fluent!

6 Likes

Pigion is a great start as it is a manageable chunk and made with learners in mind.

3 Likes

I was just listening to Post Cyntaf but my mind had wandered to this conversation and understanding individual words. Then, my girlfriend looks at me looking confused - ā€œWhat?ā€ I say. She then starts chatting about the programme that she thought Iā€™d be listening tooā€¦so sometimes its very much in the background :smile:

3 Likes

ā€œTo every thing [Turn Turn Turn!]
there is a season, [Turn Turn Turn!]
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:ā€

as Ecclesiastes has it (or as The Byrds sang it).

This is my way of suggesting that there is a time for background listening, and a time for concentrated listening.

On the whole (unless Iā€™m driving, or painting a large wall or something like that), I prefer the latter, but at first, I could only take about 5 minutes at a time (this was listening to speaking only, not music and speech). Nowadays, I can manage much longer, and usually have pen in hand and scribble down the odd word or phrase, and look it up later. With the wonderful gift that is iPlayer, we can of course, listen to things over and over, if we choose to, and go back and listen more carefully if something catches our attention when listening casually.

1 Like
4 Likes

Diolch! (Iā€™m ashamed to say that I didnā€™t realise that she performed in Welsh).

1 Like

Of course, we are all different. I did the background method - walking the dog, driving, shelving library books because it suited me. I didnā€™t do much concentrated listening as it didnā€™t appeal. We must each do what works for us.

2 Likes

Sheā€™s absolutely wonderful! I think the words in ā€˜troā€™ are a direct translation from the English (lyrics originally by Pete Seeger), at least they are somewhat different from those in the William Morgan Beibl: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+3&version=BWM

2 Likes